Hamilton city staff broke rules at Washington Trump protest

A group of city of Hamilton employees who took part in the massive anti-Trump women’s march in Washington last month were in breach of city policies.

The staffers used a city van without permission to get to Washington and conducted out-of-country city business without proper authorization.

Joe-Anne Priel, general manager of community and emergency services, was the ranking staffer among the seven employees.

Priel should have gotten authorization for the travel and use of the van from city manager Chris Murray. She didn’t.

In an email to Murray and councillors, Priel explained the group used the city van because they were conducting business while in Washington, specifically visiting community hubs and picking up “ideas which we are keen to implement.”

The question is, did they book the hub visits before or after the decision to take part in the Washington march?

Will disillusioned U.S. voters really move to Canada?

The election of Donald Trump has some Americans looking north, perhaps to make a new home in a country removed from Trump’s style of Republicanism. Many said jokingly if Trump were elected, they would move to Canada. For some, it’s no longer a joke. But moving north might not be so easy.

“You’ll never be my president, because I’m moving to Canada!,” shouted one protester, strongly opposed to a Trump presidency.

The declaration was born in anger and frustration, but also reflects what many Americans have been soberly contemplating.

On election night in the United States, an unusual occurrence took place with the computer systems of the Canada Immigration and Citizenshipdepartment. They crashed, more than once, and remained offline for hours. Canadian officials confirm that it was because of a spike in the amount of web traffic, most of it coming from the U.S.

But while the interest is acute, immigration lawyers like Lee Cohen warn that getting into Canada isn’t as easy as packing up and heading north.

“Immigrating to Canada is a complex, paper-intensive, time-consuming process with a little bit of expense attached to it,” Cohen said.

Canada normally accepts only 6,000 American immigrants a year. Officials are expecting many times that number in the wake of the election.

As for coming to Toronto, most Americans will be deterred when they find out the cost of housing in one of Canada’s hottest real estate markets. (Source: NPR)